Beuna Dia!

We are back from our time in Orica.  Currently we're in Siguatepeque at the Hess's house.  Today is kind of a rest day as well as explore more of Honduras.  Some of the team members are going to Comayagua to explore the old colonial city as well as to do some shopping while others of us are going to one of the national parks here to go hiking in what is called "the forest in the clouds".  Both should be fun as we try to "rest" for our long trek home tomorrow.

This week has been a great week to be ministers of Christ to the people in Orica.  We were able to see more than 300 patients in our 3 and a half days of clinic, as well as be a part of what the church (Alpha y Omega) is trying to do there.  Over the course of the week, I personally as well as others have been challenged to be the little lights in the world that has injustice and where people are suffering.  But even throughout the week I also came to see much more than that.  Even though we are lights on our own, there are many others around the world trying to do the same thing, and that is to lead and guide people to Christ, and through that, even though we went down here to be servants, we are called to be served as well.  Whether it was through the efforts of the amazing women who cooked for us all week to provide us with meals to help us see the great cuisine of Honduras, or the nurses that were at the clinic already who were there to help us with the flow of people and with the understanding of common problems seen down here due to a lack of health care in some areas, to the church members waiting outside after the patients had received their medications to ask and pray with them so that God might be able to touch them in a more personal way as well as heal them, or even the translators that spent all day talking in both English and Spanish to help the doctors understand what was going on, I found that I was truly blessed to even be a witness to it. 
To just witness the church services and the hymns and songs that were sung, just had me very much looking forward to what heaven will be like when we are all there.  To give singing and praise our Creator in every tribe tongue and nation will be a sight to behold.  I am often reminded of the song by Hillsong (Your Name High) where it talks about "we are living to make Your Name high" and how much I want that to be true of my life wherever I am.  He gave to the world couldn't begin to offer us, and continues to do so each and every day.

From my own story I had been able to build relationships with some of the translators that came with us, and was just simply happy to get to know them because it helped me learn their culture (as this was my first time down to Honduras) and to just build friendships that I hope to keep even upon coming back to the US.  I enjoyed getting to feel as if I was "one of them" and felt as if, for my part, that I just belonged there, and just loved and ministered to by them.  From getting to know what types of music they liked, books they read, movies and tv shows they like to watch, and in many ways improving upon my own Spanish (because they talked in it most of the time I was just around them) I was just amazed and blessed to be a part of it.  For me so often we as Americans go to places around the world being missionaries with the mind set that we are there to do everything for them, when we often forget that it's not about that, it's about building relationships, it's about being served instead of just doing all of the serving, it's about giving God all of the glory instead of keeping it for ourselves, it's about changing lives from it and through it, and through it all it's realizing that we are here for a fraction of eternity, we are here only to offer ourselves to be living sacrifices, holy and pleasing, to God.  That means that we are only a part of God's plan for the people here in Honduras and especially in Orica, not the plan of God.

Anyways, I hope that all of our readers are doing well and that they have been having great weeks of their own!  I'm sure that there are many other stories throughout the week, and I hope that when we all get back that you don't hesitate to ask us so that we can all share at least a part of what God has been doing in our lives for the past week.

Also we will update pictures when we get back as the internet here is a bit to slow to try and upload more of our pictures!

Dios le bendiga y va con Dios!